Read Valdemar 03 - [Collegium 01] - Foundation for Free Online

dozen of Cole Pieters’ sons, and if they didn’t know how to use swords, they didn’t need to, as anyone around would know they were damned good with their crossbows. Master Cole had run the man off then, and no mistaking it. He hadn’t come back either.
    Cole had been hollering about his rights then, and he was doing so now. His voice echoed harshly down the mine shaft. “I know my rights! Ye can’t just swan in here and make off with whoever ye choose! These are my workers, homeless criminals every one, signed for and turned over to me to use as I need until their time runs out!”
    Criminals? Now Mags knew that was a lie, and a big fat one, too. None of them were criminals, not even he. No one had been signed over by gaolers. Everyone here was here through no fault of their own . . .
    â€œEvidently,” drawled a new voice, sounding lazy, but with a hard edge of anger beneath the words that Mags doubted Master Cole was hearing. “Evidently you don’t know your rights as well as you think you do, Cole Pieters. I do have the right to ‘swan in here’ and take whomever I please. You are the one violating the law, denying a Companion access to his Chosen, and preventing a Herald from exercising his duty.”
    Mags relaxed. He didn’t really know what a Herald or a Companion were, though the latter sounded dirty, and he really didn’t care. As long as it wasn’t monsters come to tear him to pieces, or devils to torment him, he didn’t care.
    He emerged, blinking as usual, into the bright light of noon. And there was something of a standoff going on in the yard between the mine and the house and its outbuildings.
    There was a man all in white, with two white horses, standing right at a barricade hastily thrown up across the lane leading to the yard. Behind the barricade were Cole Pieters and all of his sons, just like the time when that other fellow had come snooping. Only this time the crossbows weren’t trained on the stranger, much to Cole Pieters’ obvious fury, as he kept looking back at his sons.
    â€œPa,” said Endal Pieters, his voice flooded with uncertainty, crossbow pointed at the ground and not even cocked. “Pa, that’s a Herald. That’s a Herald, Pa!”
    â€œI can see that!” Pieters snapped. “And the man’s daft, and so’s his horse! There’s nothing here for them to take! I ain’t letting go of any of you, no more your sisters, and there’s nothin’ in that trash—” he waved at the emerging mine crew, “—that any of them should come calling for! This is just an excuse to come snooping where they ain’t wanted, and they can turn around and—”
    â€œPa, it’s a Herald— ”
    â€œI don’ care if it’s the King hisself! I know my rights!” Pieters’ face was getting very red indeed. Mags wondered if he was finally going to have that apoplectic fit he’d been threatening to have for years now.
    Well, Pieters might or might not know his rights, but the kiddies knew when to stay out of the way. The mining crew going in scuttled across the yard and down the shaft as quick as could be, while the outgoing crew scuttled toward the eating shed as fast as they could. It didn’t do to fall under Master Cole’s eye when he was like this because if he saw you, then you would be the next thing he took out his anger on when things settled down. It was especially true if he saw you looking at him.
    So they all kept their heads down and got across the yard as quick as they could, heading for the colorless daughter waiting in the shed for them, and the equally colorless cook nervously ladling out bowls of soup. And it was a sign of how bad things were that there was no one to take the little sacks from them, the sacks that held their sparklies.
    Mags caught Davey looking sly then, and he knew that Davey was thinking up some deviltry to